The Timeless Connection of Time: Whiskey vs. Whisky, Queen Anne's War, & How South Carolina is Connected to Maker's Mark
A Matter of Time:
Understanding historical timelines can be difficult. The past is strange and sometimes nearly impossible to comprehend. Even though we might know of specific keys dates when events or notable happenings took place, understanding how moments in history fit into the greater context of society is challenging.
Time, being a mysterious entity that human minds cannot fully understand, plays tricks on us when it comes to both how close and how far away certain events seem in relation to one another. The best example of this is came from a Buzzfeed article of all places. In it, the person writing mentioned an intriguing truth about the life of Cleopatra that I had to double back and fact-check myself. Despite our minds wanting to place her in direct relation to Ancient Egypt, the famed Egyptian queen actually lived closer to the time of the first lunar landing than the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza. This was not only startling to find out, but proves to me that time really is an illusion.
We perceive time mathematically, or attempt to, as a way of “understanding it” yet, the division of seconds into minutes, and minutes into hours, and hours into days and so forth, is flawed because of the limits of our own comprehension. We physically cannot handle certain concepts like infinite numbers or an eternity of time. Our brains might give their best effort to pretend that they can to make sense of it all, but when put to the test, they fail miserably.
Most are likely aware that the comprehension of infinity is a fool’s errand, but more troubling than that is the realization that even much smaller, supposedly well known and better understood numbers are difficult to comprehend fully. Take for example, the difference between 1 million and 1 billion. We have heard these numbers referenced frequently. Whether it is in regards to the income level of celebrities, the economic debt, or even Powerball Lottery winnings, we think we know the size of a billion— “yes, of course,” we might say, “one billion a one thousand millions.” Technically that is true, but in reality, that classification is too simplistic to fully explain how profoundly large the number is. To be quite frank, the magnitude of a number as large as a billion is absolutely mind boggling when we take the time think about it.
To prove this mathematically, it has been calculated that if a person were to say aloud each number in order starting with one (and taking only one second to say each number) it would take them roughly 12 days to reach 1 million. If they were to continue, it would take them a staggering 31 years to reach 1 billion.As mind blowing as that it, even it is flawed considering that most numbers would require much more than one-second to say physically say. That means that if a person could somehow manage to defy the logic as well as the physical demands that living requires (eating, drinking, sleeping) it was still take much much longer than 31 years to complete. This is but a small sample of just how absurdly challenging it is to accurately perceive numbers, and on top of that, time, which is endless and infinite, is also infinitely more complex to wrap our minds around.
Continuing with the notion that time is confusing, many know that in 1912 the Titanic sank (and if you didn’t know that, now you do). But how many are aware that the following notable events also happened that same year? Cy Young’s retirement from baseball, the South Pole being explored for the first time, Hugh Bradley hitting the first ever home run at Fenway Park, and Native American athlete, Jim Thorpe winning gold in both the Pentathlon and Decathlon events at the Stockholm Olympic Games.
All historically relevant events— all involving household names, and all happening within the same 12 month period; but how many knew that? I’ll admit, prior to this research I had heard about each of these specific events, but had failed to put them in relation to one another or even realize when they all happened until now. This implies something else odd about time— even when we know a date or are familiar with the general time period of one event, our minds still fail to fully perceive other surrounding events that coincided or perhaps even overlapped in some way. (Example: Jim Thorpe played Major League Baseball, so the news of Cy Young, or the first home run at Fenway was likely of interest to him, as was his gold medals to those individuals). Instead, we see the past as a series of unconnected individual events, and that, is an inaccurate way of viewing time.
To accept this, is to see history with one eye closed, ignoring the other half of what’s happening; it is like reading the same work from an author multiple times and then making a claim about what the author in question is capable of; its like calling a specific shade of green the only green there is, just because you’ve never seen others. We limit ourselves by not exploring the surrounding contexts of any given historical event and by doing so we destroy the important societal connections that might be there. But when we allow our study to move horizontally as well as vertically, we start to see a fuller image that tells a story with more clarity.
1713, A Journey to America and The Queen Anne’s War
In 1713, John Samuels traveled on a ship that carried the first immigrants from Scotland to America. It is speculated by several sources that the first rye whiskey ever distilled in the New World was made by some of the individuals who shared that boat with Samuels. Whether he personally aided in this initial distillation or not is unclear, with no real way of proving or disproving it, but for lovers of Maker’s Mark bourbon, hearing that the ancestor of their eventual founder might have had at least a secondary connection to some of the earliest distillation in America is quite the charming story. Either way, John’s move from Scotland, a place still known today for its Scotch Whisky (notice the spelling, no E) set events into motion that would eventually lead to the creation of the storied red-dipped-wax brand.
Elsewhere in 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht was being signed, officially putting an end to the Queen Anne’s War, also known as the War of the Spanish Succession or the Third Indian War. This war might seem relatively unimportant to us now, especially since it was prior to our nation’s founding and was fought between England, France, and Spain, but considering that the battled took place on North American soil, in locations we know well, perhaps there’s more historic value to us here than meets the eye.
Carolinians would likely be interested to know that South Carolina, then known as the Province of Carolina, was involved in the conflict as early as 1702. As soon as war was officially declared, Carolina’s Governor, James Moore, (who some describe as ruthless— and vicious towards both Native Americans and slaves) preemptively led an attack against Spain. Moore, with a force of 500 soldiers (a mixture of formal soldiers, militiamen, and enslaved individuals) and 300 indigenous warriors set out from Charles Town Harbor (Charleston) and sailed down to the Spanish-owned city of St. Augustine, Florida.
The preemptive attack at the infancy of the war seemed, at first, to work in Moore’s favor. His troops successfully captured the city of St. Augustine without battle. They then laid siege to the fort of Castillo de San Marcos, the main seat of power in the Spanish controlled region. What Moore failed to realize though was just how fortified the castle of San Marcos was. This now historic landmark is recognized as the first “masonry fortification” in the continental Unites States. Moore found out too late that he had underestimated the strength of the the fort, lacking sufficient artillery to take the castle and claim St. Augustine for Carolina, and England. His mistake led to a lengthy siege, which allowed for the timely arrival of Spanish reinforcements from Havana. Moore and his men retreated across the mainland burning their own ships and the city of St Augustine (including the city’s church). This act of arson while on the run caused damage to both the sacked city and Moore’s legacy in the process.
Despite the wish to avenge the city, Spanish Governor, Zúñiga was unable to capitalize on the retreating Carolinians. After enduring the lengthy siege behind the walls of Castillo de San Marcos, the his troops were at the point of exhaustion. When the military relief unit from Havana elected to ignore his order and chose not to pursue Moore’s men further, the leadership of St. Augustine, had no other choice but let Moore escape back to Carolina, although there are claims that Zúñiga was able to lay claim to 3 vessels that were not burnt.
James Moore’s failure to fully lay claim in Florida, and his subsequent choices after his failed raid expended much of Carolina’s military treasury, and led to serious doubt of Moore’s ability, causing him to be stripped of his title of Governor. His offensive attack, not only tarnished how he was viewed both personally and professionally, but it guaranteed that the Spanish would retaliate eventually, and all Carolinians knew that the port city of Charles Town would be the likely target.
The hostilities between Florida and Carolina would fully ignite again 4-years later when a combined effort of Spanish and French troops attacked Charles Town from land and sea. Carolina to its credit, mounted one of the greatest defenses of a city ever recorded and successfully repelled the attack, losing only one man during the intense week-long battle. This effort not only kept Spain and France from seizing the all-important port city from England (something that possibly could have altered the outcome of this war and other major conflicts to come), but it foreshadowed the military importance of both Charles Town and South Carolina as a whole.
Any Carolinian reading this knows well the history of Charleston during the American Revolution— especially the importance of the historic landmark, Fort Sumter (named for General Thomas “Fighting Gamecock” Sumter). But this theater of war, and South Carolina’s involvement was not something that I was taught in history class. Even if this story predates America’s founding, the successful defense of Charles Town in 1706 (suffering only one casualty in the process) is something that each South Carolina native should know, and know well, because it cements Charleston’s place in not just South Carolina History, but World History as a whole.
While 1713 was the official end of the conflict that had started a decade earlier, the peace treaty was important for not just the province that would become my home state of South Carolina, but also for the immigrants arriving from Scotland that same year. The fact that they would arrive in a land that (for the time) was at peace, allowed them an opportunity to focus on their own dreams in the New World. This would prove to be vital for whiskey as a whole, as well as for the future of the Maker’s Mark brand.
Maker’s Mark: 8 Generations of Distilling— or is it 9?
Remember, I said that there is not proof that John Samuels participated in distilling, however, his son, John Samuels Jr. receives the honor of having the first recorded connection to whiskey in the Samuels family— even though that link might have been minor.
Despite being born in the US, John Samuels Jr. has even less historical information about him available than his father. This creates a complex problem of less than substantive evidence to reference when attempting to piece together the full Samuels’ story. However, the one piece of information that is known about John Jr., suggests something quite interesting, possibly indicating that the family who claims 8 generations of whiskey distilling, might actually have a ninth.
In the will of John Samuels Jr., church record shows that he owned a whiskey still as part of his estate, and that when he died, he left it to his son, Robert Samuels. While there is room for much speculation here, a simple deduction leaves us with two reasonable options, and neither can be proven: either John Samuels Jr. owned the still and knew how to operate it— having either learned from his father who or from another Scottish immigrant his family knew, making him the first of what should be re-written as 9 generations of distillers in the Samuels’ whiskey line, or he simply thought of it as a worthwhile investment despite not being able to use it himself.
Either way, the passing of the still to Robert Samuels was what mattered most, and officially begins the generational heritage of whiskey making for the family. While John Sr. and John Jr. left no clear record of actually distilling whiskey, Robert was well known as being both a farmer and a distiller of rye whiskey— having made it during his service in the American Revolution for his fellow patriot soldiers. Today, if you visit the Maker’s Mark facility in Loretto Kentucky, you can see the original 1779 tax document that affirms Robert Samuels as the owner of a 60 gallon whiskey still— a proud family heirloom that is priceless in terms of both historical and sentimental value.
Years later, as the generational tradition of whiskey making has passed hands several times over, the product being made is no longer just a simple spirit produced by a farm distiller; it is now a truly treasured whiskey that is still lovingly crafted by a brand that manages to blend world-wide success with passionate family values. With its trademark red-wax, high wheat mash-bill, and an unrelenting commitment to tradition and customer enjoyment, the Samuels family continues to put their best foot forward in the world of whiskey— or should I say “whisky”, since Maker’s Mark refers to their product as bourbon whisky, a way of honoring their Scottish heritage— which you now know started with John Samuel making his way to the new world in 1713.
The Carolina Connection
Currently, Maker’s Mark, although owned by Beam-Suntory, is still under the leadership of Rob Samuels, son of Bill Samuels Jr. and grandson of Margie and Bill Samuels Sr.— the founders of the brand. In addition to being a skilled business leader and visionary like his father and grandmother, Rob is a proud alumni of the University of South Carolina and an avid supporter of Gamecock Athletics. This connection to South Carolina, brings the Samuels family history full circle. While John Samuels arrived in 1713, at the end of a war that involved the faithful defense of Carolina (1706), Rob Samuels willingly chose Carolina to be his home for 4-years, and became an adopted son of the state’s flagship university (1996).
Time might be confusing, but when we take the opportunity to understand the various events of history and how they are interconnected, we might be surprised at just how relevant certain stories are to us.